Dropspeed

Posting this for my cousin:

She owns a newer Acura TL (05-07?) And when she went on vacation in Feb of this year for 6 days she came home to her TL with a dead battery.

The dealer replaced it with a new one and it has been fine since.

She just got back from a 10 day vacation and the battery was dead again.

The dealer told her that basically it's just "the nature of the beast with these Acura’s," that if the car sits for more than a few days, all the "always-on microchips" will drain the battery.

I find this hard to believe........and if true, a poor design.

Anyone had similar experiences with the battery on there TL?

Thanks, Matt

YeuEmMaiMai

that's not true at all................I have left my honda accord sit for 6+ months and it started right up......I have left my Acura CL sit for 3 months and it starts right up.


go to a different dealer and tell them to fix it under warranty

Kenso

The handsfree link control unit [freak]s up on some TL's and causes an excess current drain on the battery. Acura has a service bulletin for it. Most likely cause/first thing I'd suspect. The newer Acuras do seem to drain their batteries faster than the older ones, but going dead in 10 days is not normal by any means.

rmorss

OK - I am having the same exact problem with my 2008 TL-S. First I want to say that I love the car. But 3 times now in the last 9 months I have had a dead battery after the car sits for 4-6 days. The first time I thought I was leaving something on. The second time I was home sick and didn't drive it for 4 days. Hopped in and a dead battery again!!! I inspected everything and nothing was on! Well just Monday, I got back from a 6 day business trip and once again a DEAD BATTERY at the airport. I called the dealer and asked for the manager. I've had taken it in twice and each time they say - battery is fine, can't do anything for you under warranty. Today I spoke to the service manager and they are using the same line; can't leave it more than 4 days because with all the electronics in the car they will constantly draw the power from the battery. This is crazy! Basically the recommendation is that I have someone come start it for me while I am out of town or better yet get a trickle charger. Yeah - that's going to work at the airport! I am taking it back in next week and I have the expectation that they do something. Maybe they need to give me a battery that actually handles the "electronics" in my car. Spending this much money, it should! I can see leaving it for weeks, but this is totally unacceptable. Please let me know if you get anywhere with the problem. Thanks!

dtapia

Ok here i go
jenson (interstate) make the batterys for us and they are total junk we replace so many battery's every day that we will have to call them out to bring more.
in all my cars i will not and never have used a interstate battery i use a/c delco they cost a tad more but worth every penny and i dont get the corrosion like the other cheap batteries.
i was on the phone with tech line yesterday and the car im doing a trans on had some warranty issues and he was reading off the list of things and he was saying wow this car has had 2 batteries replaced in 3 months time strange lol i said the batteries we use in the cars are of the smae quality of the transmissions. he didnt find the humor.
on a serious not the hfl will and does cause problems and also have been seen the door lock position sensor not lined up and will cause a draw. that's about the only real problems we seen so far.

wilsel

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rmorss &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">OK - I am having the same exact problem with my 2008 TL-S. First I want to say that I love the car. But 3 times now in the last 9 months I have had a dead battery after the car sits for 4-6 days. The first time I thought I was leaving something on. The second time I was home sick and didn't drive it for 4 days. Hopped in and a dead battery again!!! I inspected everything and nothing was on! Well just Monday, I got back from a 6 day business trip and once again a DEAD BATTERY at the airport. I called the dealer and asked for the manager. I've had taken it in twice and each time they say - battery is fine, can't do anything for you under warranty. Today I spoke to the service manager and they are using the same line; can't leave it more than 4 days because with all the electronics in the car they will constantly draw the power from the battery. This is crazy! Basically the recommendation is that I have someone come start it for me while I am out of town or better yet get a trickle charger. Yeah - that's going to work at the airport! I am taking it back in next week and I have the expectation that they do something. Maybe they need to give me a battery that actually handles the "electronics" in my car. Spending this much money, it should! I can see leaving it for weeks, but this is totally unacceptable. Please let me know if you get anywhere with the problem. Thanks! </TD></TR></TABLE>


Not what you want to hear but I picked up a solar battery charger for $19. Just plugs into the accessory outlet. Got it at Harbor Freight. Our battery did die after 2 yrs, but it was replaced under warranty. The replacement battery even came with it's own 3 yr warranty.

DOHCgarage919

i work at acura dealer in nc and i change tons of batterys each day, to be honest acura batterys suck peroid, better getting an aftermarket battery, others go and get it changed becuase its still under warranty but acura makes poor batterys i know cuz i work at acura and i see these issues

rmorss

Whoever posted the Hands Free Link issue was right on the money! Thanks to your posting I asked the dealership to test that specifically. That was the source of my draining battery. It wasn't properly shutting off. They replaced the part and so far so good. Crossing my fingers that solves the problem. I thought I would share that. I'm just happy it's working so far so I can go back to enjoying my first time purchase of a foreign car. My advise is to keep reporting the issue to the dealer and have them continue to research the problem. Thanks again!

YeuEmMaiMai

glad u got your car fixed, now find a better dealer cause this one sounds like it sucks

dtapia

glad its fixed we stock the HFL since we do about 3 to 5 a week.

sackdz

Post pics of your cousin <3

cogrady

I am having the same exact problem with my 2008 TL-S. I replaced the battery last year, and this morning it was dead for the first time since the battery was replaced. I drove it home from work Friday afternoon, and started it Monday morning. Dead after 2 days of being idle???

I have just under 40k miles on it. The first time the battery died I was jumping my wife's car a couple times becasue she was having battery issues. When I got back form a week trip last year, my battery was dead. I thought it had something to do with the excessive jumping. There also seemed to be some corosion on it too. The mileage was arounf 32k or so.

This is complete BS if this is cgoing to keep happening. Any other suggestions?

HerCar

Does anyone have a copy of Acura TSB 08-057?

wiryhair

My car is 2008 TL-S. The battery was totally dead over one day. It has happened twice already in 3 months. I replaced my first battery under warranty on April 2010 at the acura of tempe, AZ. The pohanka acura in VA said they couldn't find any problems in the car or battery, so they could not help me, they didn't change my battery either. I will visit another dealer in VA, and I will come back with news. Man...

Tweak01

Check the actual terminal connection, mine was dead one day, than good the next. Come to find out the positive terminal had been tightened and stretched, so it would not make a good tight connection on the battery it self.

SharksBreath

ugh...i hate the OEM batteries on this car. i replaced mine right away

HerCar

Dealerships like for you to leave the car for diagnostics. Then you return, only to have a service adviser "advise" you that the technician was not able to replicate your described conditions. All of which leads up to the "advice" for costly service after your car is out of warranty.

That's another issue. Warranty? WTF is that? A 3 year warranty? If a Korean car company can give you a 10 year warranty, and American manufacturers are giving warranties that range from 5 years to limited lifetime drive-train, then Honda should certainly be able to give you a warranty that will be in effect until you completely pay off the car.

People (not me, a buddy) are getting loans with 60 payments, and making payments on a car with no warranty. Of course the answer to that is that he shouldn't be buying a car that he can't afford. But most people are not in the position to be cash buyers, when they want a new car. Unfortunately, a lot of people can't even be in the position to be cash buyers for a used car.

But what do I know? Right? That's why in our family, I drive American and she drives import. My cars are from the fleet vehicle pool with no bells and whistles, cost about half as much, come with a better warranty, and oil changes are only $10 (used to be $5 - inflation). She gets fan-boy prestige, tinted windows, pays twice as much for her car, adds horsepower with stickers, and pays $60 for the oil change.



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HerCar

I like Optima & Interstate.

I always installed Optima in my off-road vehicles. Those extra threaded posts with the wing nuts makes for very simple installation of accessories like off-road lights, winches, direct wired jumper cables, et cetera.

We have a local Interstate outlet. Interstate will stand behind every battery. When we had the last dead battery, which may or may not have been associated with the hands free link, we brought the tow truck receipts to Interstate. The guy at the counter looked at the receipts for the jump-starts, and without any hassle, offered to exchange the battery. Of course, i didn't tell him about the Honda hands free link issues. I just told him that in the last several months, their battery died overnight about a half dozen times, and that I was not satisfied with his product's ability to hold a charge.

Buy a battery, get 85 month warranty. Buy a car, get 36 month warranty. I suppose I feel short changed on the warranty. Even more upset when I think of how they try to sell you that extended warranty, which you wouldn't need in the first place, if they actually gave you a longer warranty period.

George Knighton

I've killed the battery on my 2010 daily driver.

Twice!

In my case, it is because of my stupidity in trying to put an "intelligent" button start car into either Accessory or On mode in order to perform programming.

I walk away from the car without turning it totally off.

The very evening I picked up the car back in November 2009, I had a dead battery when I went to go home from work because (unbeknownst to me) I had screwed up some of the "intelligent" settings and the headlights had been burning all day and into the evening.

:-)

Mrs TLWA

GK: Any other issues you have had with your car? Looking at the 2010 / 2011 and it would be a DD. Good to know .. don't mess with intelligent settings

George Knighton

Nope, no problems at all.

51,000 miles now and completely trouble free.

The B counter is set for lifetime mileage and it is showing 24.2 miles per gallon. I'll frequently go over 25 miles per gallon, but 24.2 is the lifetime average.

They're great cars. Too bad the combination of controversial, aggressive looks and a downturned economy kept them off the road.

gst_hilaire

i second anyone thinking the problem is the handsfreelink i had same problem with my 08 TL but reading through blogs i went and checked for myself...when the car does not draw any current, normal readings on a meter should be around 0.01 to 0.09 amps... when car is off the hfl still draws current i could read0.2 to 0.40 which is alot of current drawn without an alternator recharging u can lose your 12 volt power source in a matter of days..solution is to live without the hfl or buy a new one not knowing if a new one will cause the same issues my hfl has been failing to work for a few months it keep saying its rebooting without any good results. i disconnected the part and current draws went back to 0.01A... life s good. the problem mostly occurred when out of town and my wife wanted use the car..she s not an everyday driver so the car sat for 2-3 days before she tried starting it.
Acura is awared of the problem and all they can offer you is to buy another hfl at the cost of 600$+ tech fees... all it is is a chipboard sitting in the overhead light console, i dont see whats so expensive about it.. its a ripoff. disconnect the harness leading to this device and forget about ur problems.. theres lots of aftermarket bluetooth device that will do the trick if you really need handsfree

WanaBeFaster

Acura factory batteries are crap. If it's a year old, it needs to be replaced. If the positive cable has corrosion on it, replace the cable and the battery. It's hard for me to read some of this knowing how things can be lost in translation between a technician and service adviser, as well as from adviser to customer. No, it is not normal for your cars battery to die after 10 days or so, however it is normal to have an Acura with a dead battery (lol). Why? like I said, factory batteries in these cars are crap (I don't care who makes them or where they come from, they suck). Not to mention known battery draw problems from HFL units (this will show a 250mA draw) as well as a/c compressor relays hanging up (this will show more like 900mA draw, and will kill a battery overnight.)